Donald Trump: America's Berlusconi?

[Warren Dew]

(01-09-2017, 06:28 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-08-2017, 11:04 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-08-2017, 05:37 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(01-08-2017, 12:26 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Trump has a terrific opportunity on the economic front, because there has been no actual recovery from the financial recession.  Instead, under the Obama administration, the economy has grown parallel to the long term trend, but below it, rather than recovering to the long term trend after the recession as is more usual.





If Trump can identify and reverse the Obama policies that prevented a recovery, and avoid implementing any depressive policies of his own such as trade isolationism, there could be a rapid first term economic improvement that would make him wildly popular.  Granted that is a big "if".

As the graph shows the deviation from linearity began after 2000. Both sides have had a crack at it with no results. The problem is things are better for those on the top than they have been for a very long time. Furthermore Republicans are completely dominant without having done anything to address this issue. As soon as Obama leaves office they can assert that its morning in America again.  Polls show the GOP base is coming to believe that the economy is in good shape since the election. If it ain't broke you don't fix it.

The substantial deviation from the trend clearly starts with the 2008 recession.  Prior to that, the line was as close to the trend as it was for most of the 1990s.  I grant that the housing bubble did not produce the same upward pop that the internet bubble did, but that has limited relevance to the current situation.

I don't see how you can say the Republicans are dominant when the President is still a Democrat.

Parts of the Republican base may be reacting to the effervescence of the stock market in the wake of the election.  However, if Trump doesn't deliver improved wages and employability to the working class whites who put him over the top, or substantial improvement to some other segment to make up for their votes, he's going to have difficulty winning reelection.

Quote:This has happened before after ca. 1910:

Last time effective action on the problem was taken only after those at the top perceived that they had a problem.  I don't think we are there yet.

What do you see as the issue in 1910, and how and when do you think it was addressed?  Fair warning:  I can see what you're talking about, but it appears to me to date from about 1907 with respect to GDP, and it doesn't appear to me ever to have been addressed;

We are past the stage of economic development in which the secret of happiness is the economic system producing more stuff. You can furnish an apartment very well with serviceable stuff that people have cast off at thrift stores. Services are where the creation of happiness is now. It is easier to provide potential services than to sell them.

Donald Trump promised jobs to people well prepared for an old economy in which manufacturing led. That time is over. The assembly-line jobs in the auto industry don't pay as well in real terms as they used to: the going wage in real terms at Ford is now worth less in real terms than the much-vaunted $5 a day wage that Henry Ford offered a century ago.

I agree that services are more important to today's economy than manufactured products.  This is part of the reason I argue against protectionism:  there's a lot more room to improve the employment and wage situation in services than in manufacturing.  I also agree that Trump has put too much emphasis on manufacturing.

I do think Trump has a golden opportunity to improve the employment situation.  However, I don't think staying the course purely on manufacturing is the way to take advantage of that opportunity.  That's why I characterize it as a "big 'if'" whether Trump will actually take advantage of that golden opportunity.

Quote:...Republicans will have crushing dominance in elective politics in a few days. Democrats have a few states and some big cities in which they have some authority... but elsewhere one might as well be living in a single-Party dictatorship except for the right to protest.  Profits will be sacred and people will be expendable, according to the only Gospel that matters anymore -- that of Ayn Rand.

Now you know what it felt like to be a conservative in 2009-2010.  Don't worry, either Trump will deliver better than Obama, or the Democrats will make gains in the House.

Quote:Supply does not create its own demand. Just because there is a fine cancer hospital in town does not mean that I will get treatment for cancer if I do not have cancer.

Supply and demand are functions, not scalars; they are functions that interact.  If you are interested, I can explain further, but I'll need to create some graphs and figure out how to display them here.  That said, Trump's golden opportunity isn't classical supply side stimulus.